Spaghetti Pie

We’ve talked about it before. I’m not a casserole kind of chef, I’m an over-thinker who genuinely enjoys multiple components. The more complicated, the better. I crave a challenge. That is all well and good in a life that revolves only around me, but alas, I am married to midwestern man that just needs a dang casserole once in a while.

Once in a while is an overstatement. Poor Travis gets his casserole fill perhaps once a year, and even then he probably has to make it himself. The rest of the year he’s tortured with crepes, dim sum, tapas and any other variety of international dishes I want to tackle. He leads a difficult life.

As a byproduct of a recipe testing weekend, we found ourselves drowning in spaghetti with roasted tomato sauce. In my strange world I love cold leftover noodles. Sometimes I think I make pasta just so I can eat the cold leftovers the next day. It’s a strange enjoyment and I certainly can’t expect one single other person on the planet to like my cold leftovers, so I pondered how I could re-purpose the mountain of pasta in our refrigerator.

I seem to remember some faceless host on Food Network baking leftover spaghetti bolognese in a springform pan and calling it “Spaghetti Pie”. I have no recollection of who it was, and when I search Food Network for said dish, I’m greeted with any variety of options. Not one to ever actually read a recipe (ironic, I know), I ran with intuition and set to figuring out my own version.

I already had the spaghetti and tomato sauce, mixed together (in great abundance, I might add). I buttered my 100 year old cast iron skillet, tossed the spaghetti with an egg and ricotta to bind, and topped with bechamel – a la Italian lasagna or moussaka. The result was a gooey, cheesy, comforting mushy casserole for which my husband was extremely grateful.

Hahaha I can totally relate to the number of components and challenges to a dish. I felt so alone on this! So thank you for that. But I do think you should make casseroles more often, as I think this one looks delicious!